Special Correspondent :
State-run Jibon Bima Corporation (JBC) has sought Finance Ministry’s intervention to get back its Tk 115.53 crore fund stuck in trouble hit Farmers Bank.
In a formal letter sent recently to the Senior Secretary of the Bank and Financial Institutions Division (BFID), Ministry of Finance, the JBC sought the help of the ministry in recovering the fund.
The demand was made at a time when the cash-strapped bank is consistently failing to pay back deposits held by other government agencies and individuals.
“We sought the ministry’s intervention as the bank is consistently refusing to pay the fund. In the letter, we reported to the Ministry about the situation while seeking its directive and intervention in getting the money back,” a senior JBC official told The New Nation yesterday wishing not to be named. He said the fund was kept at four branches (Mirpur, Gulshan, Motijheel and Imamganj) of Farmers Bank as eight interest bearing term deposits.
As one of the deposits of Tk 6.46 crore (Imamganj branch) got matured, the Jibon Bima Corporation on December 7 last year officially asked the bank to pay the money. The bank failed to pay on the plea of liquidity crisis.
The Corporation later asked the bank for returning all the deposits following rising concern over the liquidity crisis. The deposits made at Farmers Bank for one-year term expired in December last year.
“In fact, we want to pull out all our deposit in view of bank’s liquidity crisis. We asked for the deposits for over the last four months, but the bank authorities failed to pay,” said the official of Jibon Bima Corporation, adding, “Now, we fear the safety of the deposit. In this context, we lodged complaints with the ministry seeking its intervention to get back the fund. ”
Md Ehsan Khasru, Managing Director of Farmers Bank, could not be reached immediately for comments.
Farmers Bank earlier also failed to pay back matured fixed deposits of a number of government agencies including the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (Tk 508 crore), the Mongla Port Authority (Tk 68 crore) and the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (Tk 38.59 crore) and Ansar-VDP Unnayan Bank (Tk10 crore).
According to sources, as of January 15 this year, the deposit at the Farmers Bank stood at around Tk4,500 crore. Of the amount, Tk1,800 crore of deposits came from different government institutions including the state-owned banks.
